


The Last Mermaid

by DreamsOfSleep



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, Mermaids, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7067242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is just a lowly security guard at the science lab, but he’s the only one that can hear her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Mermaid

After being fired from the bar and being unemployed for six months, Winston helps him land a job as a night security guard in a science lab. 

Mike, the head of security, shows him around the lab. “All you have to do is sit here and look at the monitors. Make sure no one breaks in; if they do, call the real cops. Don’t touch anything. Don’t open the cages or the tanks. Don’t touch the animals. Don’t ask the scientists stupid questions. In fact, don’t talk to them at all. Just keep your head down and your mouth shut. It’s an easy job; don’t screw it up.” 

\---

For a week, everything is normal. He sits and reads Hemingway and tries to work on his zombie novel. He plays cards and watches bad infomercials on the small black and white TV. When he gets really bored, he builds dioramas out of food from the vending machines and sugar packets from the breakroom.

\---

One night he hears _‘help me’_ in his head. He looks around but the lab is empty like it is every night. It freaks him out; he thinks he’s losing it. He doesn’t tell anybody though because he really needs this job. He starts to ask Winston to call him every night when he is at the lab just to make sure he is still sane. 

\---

A few weeks later he is walking through the lab just to stretch his legs. He stops at one of the tanks and peers in. Some kind of half-human sea creature is in the tank. It looks like a woman from the waist up with long raven hair, but has the silvery tail of a fish. He hears it again, _‘help me.’_ She’s looking directly at him. Her eyes are blue like the ocean. For some reason it doesn’t freak him out this time. Maybe because he knows where the voice is coming from now and that he isn’t insane. Or maybe he is, but he doesn’t feel insane. The voice makes him feel calm. 

_‘Who are you?’_ he asks back with his mind.

_‘My name is Jess.’_

_‘I’m Nick. What are you?’_

_‘I live in the ocean.’_

_‘How are you talking to me?’_

_‘You’re special…’_

_‘I’m just a lowly security guard here though. Don’t you want to talk to one of the scientists?’_

She shakes her head. _‘They want to cut me open to figure me out.’_

_But they’re scientists…you can probably reason with them. They would listen to you if you spoke to them._

_‘Can’t…’_ she looks at the scummy water of the small tank, at all the wires and tubes attached to her. _‘They took my voice.’_

He presses his hand to the glass.

She swims away from him to the far side of the tank, as far as all the wires and tubes allow her to move in the small tank. 

He returns to the security booth.

\---

He works up the courage to speak to one of the scientists during the daytime.

“Sorry to bother you, but can I talk to you about Tank 16?” 

The scientist looks at him in annoyance. “You know you aren’t supposed to walk into the lab, right? You’re supposed to stay in the security booth. Our projects are classified.”

Nick doesn’t respond to that but he keeps standing in the scientist’s office and makes no move to leave. 

The scientist sighs and says, “What about Tank 16?”

“You’re hurting her. Her tank’s too small. She can’t move around in there because you have her all wired up. The water’s disgusting; you don’t change it enough. You need to let her go.”

The scientist gives him a condescending look. “Don’t anthropomorphize the animals. It’s an it, not a she. They can’t feel anything. Stop talking about things you know nothing about. You’re just a security guard; do your job and we’ll do ours.”

Nick grinds his teeth in frustration but leaves the scientist’s office.

\---

During his night shifts now, he sits and watches her swim around in her small tank. She sends images into his mind of the inky depths of the ocean, of the taste of salt water and the feel of the sun on bare skin, of the thrill of swimming next to dolphins and sharks and diving to explore coral reefs, of the sensation of tropical fish swimming past her like a living multi-colored rainbow. She sends him images of a family waiting for her to come home.

\---

When he doesn’t have night shifts now, he starts to miss her.

He sees the other security guards throw trash into her tank because they think it’s funny to yell at her to retrieve it like a seal in the zoo. He chews them out for doing that and makes sure her tank is always clean (or as clean as he can make it).

He likes to talk to her about his day. She blinks at him from the other side of the tank and he knows she’s listening.

Sometimes he plays her music through the intercom system. Once he starts doing that for a couple of weeks, she starts to sing back to him in his mind. He wishes he could hear what her real voice sounds like.

\---

He hears the scientists talk about cutting her open. He can see her tortured eyes in his mind’s eye.

He makes a decision.

\---

One night he shuts off all the cameras in the lab.

He breaks open the lock on the tank and lifts up the lid.

“Come on,” he prompts her to swim towards him. She hangs back at the far side of the tank, unsure. 

“It’s okay,” he says to her. “Don’t be afraid.”

 _‘I trust you,’_ he hears in his mind.

She swims to him, breaking the surface of the water in the tank. He puts an oxygen mask over her face and starts to unclip the wires and tubes from her. He lifts her out of the water and sneaks her out to his car wrapped in wet blankets. He drives her to the ocean and lowers her carefully into the water.

She touches his face once with her hand and then he watches her swim away from him. Her silvery tail dips below the ocean’s surface.

He stands on the beach and watches her go. 


End file.
